Strawberry and Orange Sorbet – South Africa

Inspired by the stunning colours of the cut oranges at the Babylonstoren garden coffee shop, I devised this sorbet when I came back to Joburg. Half orange and half strawberry, it is the simplest of sorbet recipes. I generally think most commercial ice cream, and a lot of recipes for homemade ice cream also, contain too much sugar. Not just for health reasons, but because the ice cream is simply too sweet. For this recipe I tried using agave nectar sugar instead of normal sugar, which is said to be low GI and diabetes friendly. I added a full 100 ml of sugar, but if you like your ice cream even less sweet I think it’s fine to use just half of that.

1 cup (or about 250 ml) of freshly squeezed orange juice

1 cup (or about 250 ml) of freshly squeezed strawberry juice

100 ml of agave nectar sugar granules

Mix the two juices together with the sugar granules and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Chill in fridge before pouring it into the ice cream maker, and freeze as soon as the sorbet is done. You can probably do this without an ice cream maker too, pouring the juice mix into a container and freezing it directly. But you will have to stir it occasionally during the freezing to make sure it doesn’t crystallize, and I always advise pouring the almost frozen sorbet into a bowl and working it with an electric whisk just before the last freezing. That helps working some air into the sorbet, giving it a smoother, fluffy texture.